4,000 Strikeouts = 1 Fender Strat

The Diamondbacks held a special
pregame ceremony for Randy Johnson in honor of his 4,000th strikeout on Tuesday,
presenting him with a special Fender Stratocaster guitar with Rawlings baseball
stitching.

Stealing A Wedding Blog

Jonathan created a wedding blog
for his up-coming marriage to Joanne. Matt and Meg are also getting married, but
they decided to save some time and effort and simply borrowed Jonathan's design
work. As you can see, their wedding blog is
remarkably similar to Jonathan's.

Misdirected Anger

Two days ago I noted
that a new Nicholson Baker novel will be available in August. The subject matter
of the book (a discussion about assassinating George W. Bush) makes it very
controversial.

I also mentioned that I happen to have a
fan site devoted to Nicholson
Baker. Because of that site, I've received 16 "hate" emails (so far). Some of
them are vulgar, some of them appear to be written by high school dropouts, and
the authors of some of them seem to think that I'm actually Nicholson
Baker. Most are anonymous.

I'm not sure what to make of all this. I
suspect that most of these people have no idea who Nicholson Baker is. The book
may be good, or it may be a worthless piece of garbage. Who knows? But one thing
is certain: none of these correspondents has read it. Yet they feel the need to
criticize me simply because I have a Web site about the author of a book they
haven't read.

I'm tempted to copy and paste some excerpts from the emails
-- but that would only encourage more.

Posted on 1 July, 2004

A Productive Day In Tucson

We're back from a productive day in Tucson. The next time we make that drive
it will be going home.

The house is finished, and it's looking great. We
were present for a three-hour final inspection, and only a few minor problems
were discovered. I signed my name about a dozen more times, and today I wired a
huge amount of money to the escrow company. The deal should close today or early
tomorrow.

While we were there, we also opened bank accounts, ordered up
all the utilities, and even bought some furniture that will be delivered the day
we arrive. And I even had time to take some photos.